We, collectively, are Fucked.
I'm sorry if that seems harsh. It's still true.
Fuck you.
If anyone in this fuckwit country had been paying attention for the last five years, I wouldn't be watching this happening. Let me refresh your memories with a few choice images:
-an elderly man being arrested by helmeted thugs, his prosthetic leg forcibly removed.
-prisoners handed over into torture by Canadian troops.
-a three time convicted, disbarred lawyer working in the Prime Minister's Office while his prostitute mistress collects a salary he arranged through patronage.
-a Canadian General commanding an airstrike that ended with the death of several children under the age of twelve. Children murdered because a Canadian gave the order.
-the largest mass arrest in Canada's history, incarcerated women threatened with gang rape.
-one hundred and fifty five of Canada's soldiers dead in a mountain land where Empires go to die.
-twenty two Canadians dead of listeriosis because the Conservative government loosened regulations and procedures.
-a Prime Minister who is on record saying Canada is shameful for its socialized medicine.
-an environmental catastrophe so large that it can be viewed from space, shepherded by a Conservative government so disinterested in the environment that their environment minister resigned rather than make his annual reports.
Are you smiling? Do the memories cheer you up? The little people suffering as they should be while your life goes on so utterly unchanged? Good. You've finally gotten the government you wanted. You've finally got the government you deserve. The RCMP can do what they like, the CPC can do what they like, the Corporations can do whatever they like and so can you.
Without your government mandated medical care, public education, civil rights or human rights of course, but you weren't even using those were you? Everything will be just fine, business as usual, smiles and sunshine everywhere...
Provided you don't get in the way of the CPC, the Corporations and the RCMP.
What could be more delightful than this, you ask? Why, you get to pay them for the privilege. Oh yes, and don't worry, your loss is their gain and that's just how they like it.
Do you like it when people in authority they don't deserve lie to your face? When they break the law and laugh when you point it out?
Congratulations. We're all in this together now, and we will be for the next four years.
Fuck you.
And Fuck Me too.
Because with a Harper Conservative Majority, ALL of us are Fucked.
Showing posts with label Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Election. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Monday, 2 May 2011
Election Day!
The polls open in just a few more hours. If you haven't voted already in the advance polls, get out there and cast your ballot.
Tomorrow my nation decides what kind of future we want. Will we look forward or will we curl in on ourselves? Will we open our minds or will we close our eyes? Will we prove to ourselves and the world that we are still of that same courageous stock as our fathers and forefathers, or will we denounce ourselves as cowards and paranoiacs?
There are many candidates running for office in tomorrow's election, but there are really only two messages. Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are petty, small-minded, theocratic, authoritarian, cowardly, corrupt, venal and thuggish. The campaign Harper and his people (and the lazy, complicit "liberal media" *hawk-spit!*) have run has been the most negative I can ever remember: attack ads, cheap smears, outright lies, people thrown out of town-halls or banned from gatherings, candidates campaigning in hiding and ducking debates.
All of this is of a piece. The Conservative Party follow their leader, and he is a low, vicious, vindictive excuse for a man. He would happily sell out the ideals of my country for his vision of what we all should be - dismantle our socialized medicine, engage us in every brush-fire war the United States sees fit to start, play spendthrift with our tax dollars and have nothing to show for it but photo ops, shiny toys that don't work (courtesy of Lockheed-Martin and their lovely F-35... we'd be better off buying BAC English Electric Lightnings to protect our borders), withdraw funding from charities and NGO's, deny women and homosexuals their human rights and trample all over all of our rights and freedoms with his band of handpicked goons.
That is the message of the Conservative Party of Canada.
The other parties, while they bicker and snipe at one another, all have things in common: principles, ideals, hope, moral courage and a vision for Canada that is positive instead of negative.
Are they perfect? No. Are they flawed? Yes. Do I agree with all of their platforms? No, there are issues that none of the opposition parties have touched on that I feel are very important.
But they they stand for something positive. They all want to build something, instead of tearing down what others have striven so hard to build.
Tomorrow, you have a choice. You can decide the direction of Canada's future, along with every other citizen.
As a people, Canadians can choose to move forward courageously into an uncertain future. Or we can place our heads back into the sand for another five years and hope that the trials and tribulations afflicting the world will mostly pass us by.
Canada was once a leading nation, a shining example to other countries. In technology, in foreign aid, in democracy, in caring for one another.
We can be again.
We stand on the brink of a collapse into authoritarian chaos, if we allow it.
We stand at the cusp of a Golden Age, if we will it.
Tomorrow my nation decides what kind of future we want. Will we look forward or will we curl in on ourselves? Will we open our minds or will we close our eyes? Will we prove to ourselves and the world that we are still of that same courageous stock as our fathers and forefathers, or will we denounce ourselves as cowards and paranoiacs?
There are many candidates running for office in tomorrow's election, but there are really only two messages. Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are petty, small-minded, theocratic, authoritarian, cowardly, corrupt, venal and thuggish. The campaign Harper and his people (and the lazy, complicit "liberal media" *hawk-spit!*) have run has been the most negative I can ever remember: attack ads, cheap smears, outright lies, people thrown out of town-halls or banned from gatherings, candidates campaigning in hiding and ducking debates.
All of this is of a piece. The Conservative Party follow their leader, and he is a low, vicious, vindictive excuse for a man. He would happily sell out the ideals of my country for his vision of what we all should be - dismantle our socialized medicine, engage us in every brush-fire war the United States sees fit to start, play spendthrift with our tax dollars and have nothing to show for it but photo ops, shiny toys that don't work (courtesy of Lockheed-Martin and their lovely F-35... we'd be better off buying BAC English Electric Lightnings to protect our borders), withdraw funding from charities and NGO's, deny women and homosexuals their human rights and trample all over all of our rights and freedoms with his band of handpicked goons.
That is the message of the Conservative Party of Canada.
The other parties, while they bicker and snipe at one another, all have things in common: principles, ideals, hope, moral courage and a vision for Canada that is positive instead of negative.
Are they perfect? No. Are they flawed? Yes. Do I agree with all of their platforms? No, there are issues that none of the opposition parties have touched on that I feel are very important.
But they they stand for something positive. They all want to build something, instead of tearing down what others have striven so hard to build.
Tomorrow, you have a choice. You can decide the direction of Canada's future, along with every other citizen.
As a people, Canadians can choose to move forward courageously into an uncertain future. Or we can place our heads back into the sand for another five years and hope that the trials and tribulations afflicting the world will mostly pass us by.
Canada was once a leading nation, a shining example to other countries. In technology, in foreign aid, in democracy, in caring for one another.
We can be again.
We stand on the brink of a collapse into authoritarian chaos, if we allow it.
We stand at the cusp of a Golden Age, if we will it.
Today we decide what shape the future will be.
Get out there. Vote your conscience. Vote strategically.
But Vote.
Sunday, 1 May 2011
The Election is Tomorrow...
And in my riding, John Baird is running for reelection for the Conservative Party of Canada.
This is a man who, in his time in the House of Commons, is best known for shouting down his party's political opponents and carrying water for Stephen Harper. He is, quite frankly, odious and vile. He is a thug, and his presence as Ottawa West-Nepean's representative in Parliament lowers the tone and the standard for all those he speaks for.
He was the MP who introduced the "Accountability Act." I'll pause a moment while you savour the irony of that. This act has failed systemically and entirely to render a scandal-ridden government anything close to accountable. I would suggest reading Democracy Watch's summary for a series of examples of the failure of the Conservative government to address accountability.
In the five years he has worked in the House of Commons, John Baird has been responsible for cuts to social programs including medical marijuana, the Status of Women, employment for youth and more. He has supported a lackluster environmental policy that saw Consevatives fighting the Kyoto Protocol and Clean Air Act and been personally criticized by such luminaries as David Suzuki and Al Gore.
His presence in the House of Commons is an insult and a joke to every rational citizen of my riding. His policy failures are a matter of public record and his party's policy decisions are crippling Canada's reputation internationally. Tomorrow I have hope that he will find himself out of a job.
Because he's a thug and a toady, because he puts the CPC ahead of local interests, because like the CPC he works to make Canada worse instead of better.
So cast your votes tomorrow, and let's toss Stephen Harper's lapdog out on his ear.
This is a man who, in his time in the House of Commons, is best known for shouting down his party's political opponents and carrying water for Stephen Harper. He is, quite frankly, odious and vile. He is a thug, and his presence as Ottawa West-Nepean's representative in Parliament lowers the tone and the standard for all those he speaks for.
He was the MP who introduced the "Accountability Act." I'll pause a moment while you savour the irony of that. This act has failed systemically and entirely to render a scandal-ridden government anything close to accountable. I would suggest reading Democracy Watch's summary for a series of examples of the failure of the Conservative government to address accountability.
In the five years he has worked in the House of Commons, John Baird has been responsible for cuts to social programs including medical marijuana, the Status of Women, employment for youth and more. He has supported a lackluster environmental policy that saw Consevatives fighting the Kyoto Protocol and Clean Air Act and been personally criticized by such luminaries as David Suzuki and Al Gore.
His presence in the House of Commons is an insult and a joke to every rational citizen of my riding. His policy failures are a matter of public record and his party's policy decisions are crippling Canada's reputation internationally. Tomorrow I have hope that he will find himself out of a job.
Because he's a thug and a toady, because he puts the CPC ahead of local interests, because like the CPC he works to make Canada worse instead of better.
So cast your votes tomorrow, and let's toss Stephen Harper's lapdog out on his ear.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
The Stephen Harper Vision of Canada
Warren Kinsella offers a glance.
These fine folk offer a retrospective.
This is what my nation has in store for it, if Stephen Harper is given a majority mandate. Take a good long look and ask yourself if that is the kind of Canada you'd like to live in.
I love my country, but I really don't recognize it anymore. We've fallen so far from the ideals I always pictured when I thought of Canada. We are better than Stephen Harper would have us, and we can be better than he imagines us. He is a vile, petty, vindictive controlling man and his vision is so limited and so broken that it drives me to rage.
What maddens me all the more is that for all his lies, for all his crimes, Canadians seem blinded. It baffles me that people will still listen to him and support him, after everything that he and his people have done. What is wrong with these people?
And if he wins a majority, what will we do then? Will the Liberals and the NDP have the moral courage to stop their petty, useless sniping at one another and form a coalition with the Bloc?
Is any one of the so called 'leaders' willing to set politics aside and act not for their own power and gain but for Canada's benefit?
Have the lies and the rot set in so deep that Harper's vision for Canada is what we deserve?
The day after the election we'll know. If Harper wins, will Canadians fight back and prove that we deserve something better?
Or will we sink back into our chairs and settle our blinders more comfortably on our heads and hope that it will all pass us by without affecting us directly?
These fine folk offer a retrospective.
This is what my nation has in store for it, if Stephen Harper is given a majority mandate. Take a good long look and ask yourself if that is the kind of Canada you'd like to live in.
I love my country, but I really don't recognize it anymore. We've fallen so far from the ideals I always pictured when I thought of Canada. We are better than Stephen Harper would have us, and we can be better than he imagines us. He is a vile, petty, vindictive controlling man and his vision is so limited and so broken that it drives me to rage.
What maddens me all the more is that for all his lies, for all his crimes, Canadians seem blinded. It baffles me that people will still listen to him and support him, after everything that he and his people have done. What is wrong with these people?
And if he wins a majority, what will we do then? Will the Liberals and the NDP have the moral courage to stop their petty, useless sniping at one another and form a coalition with the Bloc?
Is any one of the so called 'leaders' willing to set politics aside and act not for their own power and gain but for Canada's benefit?
Have the lies and the rot set in so deep that Harper's vision for Canada is what we deserve?
The day after the election we'll know. If Harper wins, will Canadians fight back and prove that we deserve something better?
Or will we sink back into our chairs and settle our blinders more comfortably on our heads and hope that it will all pass us by without affecting us directly?
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
A word on my Politics and the Election
As Canada approaches an election that seems destined to polarize our people and our politics, I think it meet to say a little about my own political leanings.
I am not a Conservative nor a Liberal nor even a Democrat or Green. I've always found ideas and ideals more important than party lines, and the actions and choices of our elected representatives are more revealing than the labels they claim.
In the past I have voted for the Green Party more often than any others, because the choice between the Tories and Grits has often seemed to be of the "flip the coin and then shoot yourself" variety, and in my riding I have never liked the NDP representatives terribly well either. Giving a few dollars to the Green Party by casting my vote for them seemed as efficient a use for my X as any.
But Stephen Harper's stewardship of the Conservative Party seems to enshrine the kind of radical polarization we can see south of the border. His actions, his personal cowardice and his disrespect to the Nation I love are unforgiveable. Under his 'leadership'*, Stephen Harper has turned the Conservative Party into a caricature. They have stumbled from scandal to scandal, running the gamut from electoral fraud, influence peddling, fiscal irresponsibility, intimidation, pork-barrel spending and outright brutality.
He has to go.
I truly don't care how it is accomplished, or who gains a mandate to govern Canada for the next few years. All that matters to me is that the Conservatives are defeated. A Harper majority would just be the final step towards Canada joining the United States in a frantic race to the bottom.
So wherever you vote, whatever your thinking about our leaders, I will be voting not FOR a candidate or a party...
I will be voting AGAINST.
And isn't that really the Canadian Way?
---
* I place the term in quotes because I don't believe Stephen Harper could even define the term Leader to my satisfaction.
I am not a Conservative nor a Liberal nor even a Democrat or Green. I've always found ideas and ideals more important than party lines, and the actions and choices of our elected representatives are more revealing than the labels they claim.
In the past I have voted for the Green Party more often than any others, because the choice between the Tories and Grits has often seemed to be of the "flip the coin and then shoot yourself" variety, and in my riding I have never liked the NDP representatives terribly well either. Giving a few dollars to the Green Party by casting my vote for them seemed as efficient a use for my X as any.
But Stephen Harper's stewardship of the Conservative Party seems to enshrine the kind of radical polarization we can see south of the border. His actions, his personal cowardice and his disrespect to the Nation I love are unforgiveable. Under his 'leadership'*, Stephen Harper has turned the Conservative Party into a caricature. They have stumbled from scandal to scandal, running the gamut from electoral fraud, influence peddling, fiscal irresponsibility, intimidation, pork-barrel spending and outright brutality.
He has to go.
I truly don't care how it is accomplished, or who gains a mandate to govern Canada for the next few years. All that matters to me is that the Conservatives are defeated. A Harper majority would just be the final step towards Canada joining the United States in a frantic race to the bottom.
So wherever you vote, whatever your thinking about our leaders, I will be voting not FOR a candidate or a party...
I will be voting AGAINST.
And isn't that really the Canadian Way?
---
* I place the term in quotes because I don't believe Stephen Harper could even define the term Leader to my satisfaction.
The English Debate is Tonight
And while Elizabeth May will not be there, the rest of the major party leaders will be in attendance.
I hope that they will have learned from their lesson in 2008. Attack Harper, band together, ignore his attempts to turn you against one another. There are ten thousand things they can hold up as evidence of Stephen Harper's malfeasance, if only they take this opportunity. Being in front of the cameras and confronted with difficult questions that he simply cannot dodge is Stephen Harper's worst nightmare.
These two debates are the only time in this election that he absolutely cannot campaign inside his protective shield of flunkies, cronies and sycophants. If Ignatieff, Layton and Duceppe take this opportunity and work together, they can destroy him.
Oh, I hope they've learned. You can only fight Harper's lies by confronting him with the truth of his deeds. Expose him to Canada as the criminal and villain that he is and you can drag him down.
Harper is a wounded beast already in this campaign, snarling and roaring to everyone who can hear. He tells every crowd he speaks to (and oh, such carefully vetted crowds they be) just what they want to hear and hopes that no one else is paying attention. He wants only his own supporters to vote, doing everything he can to drive down turnout.
Even if forming a coalition is off the table for Michael Ignatieff, Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton, they should be banding together. Compared to the enmity Harper holds for them, their differences are small, and they are petty. Harper is a threat to all of them.
Work together. Drag him down. Tear out the lies that fuel his campaign and show them to the people.
They can hand Harper a ringing defeat tonight.
I hope they can see that.
I hope that they will have learned from their lesson in 2008. Attack Harper, band together, ignore his attempts to turn you against one another. There are ten thousand things they can hold up as evidence of Stephen Harper's malfeasance, if only they take this opportunity. Being in front of the cameras and confronted with difficult questions that he simply cannot dodge is Stephen Harper's worst nightmare.
These two debates are the only time in this election that he absolutely cannot campaign inside his protective shield of flunkies, cronies and sycophants. If Ignatieff, Layton and Duceppe take this opportunity and work together, they can destroy him.
Oh, I hope they've learned. You can only fight Harper's lies by confronting him with the truth of his deeds. Expose him to Canada as the criminal and villain that he is and you can drag him down.
Harper is a wounded beast already in this campaign, snarling and roaring to everyone who can hear. He tells every crowd he speaks to (and oh, such carefully vetted crowds they be) just what they want to hear and hopes that no one else is paying attention. He wants only his own supporters to vote, doing everything he can to drive down turnout.
Even if forming a coalition is off the table for Michael Ignatieff, Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton, they should be banding together. Compared to the enmity Harper holds for them, their differences are small, and they are petty. Harper is a threat to all of them.
Work together. Drag him down. Tear out the lies that fuel his campaign and show them to the people.
They can hand Harper a ringing defeat tonight.
I hope they can see that.
Monday, 4 April 2011
Just to put a bed to this "Spooky Coalition" Nonsense
Once and for all.
An oldie, but a goodie. Rick Mercer says it better than I ever could.
The Rick Mercer Report: Canada Explained
An oldie, but a goodie. Rick Mercer says it better than I ever could.
The Rick Mercer Report: Canada Explained
Friday, 1 April 2011
At times like these...
I remember what it was like to be proud to be Canadian. Then I hang my head and fight back tears of rage.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/04/01/cv-election-harper-economy-1029.html
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is once again vowing to end electoral per-vote subsidies. The last time he floated this idea, Canada came close to a constitutional crisis and its first Coalition Government. But Harper prorogued Parliament and the Opposition blinked.
But he has never changed his intentions and he has never changed his desires. Stephen Harper is a criminal. His government (do recall that it was the, heh, 'Harper Government') is under investigation for electoral fraud, is guilty of being in contempt of Parliament, is plagued by scandal after scandal. All those scandals seem to trace back right to the Prime Minister's Office. How could they do anything else, when Harper is such a control freak.
So this is what my nation has to look forward to, if Harper gets a majority mandate?
Worse than that, though, is the simple fact that in spite of all the scandal and malfeasance and corruption and contempt, Stephen Harper is not suffering in the polls. For all his crimes, his supporters are not deserting him.
"The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice." -Quellcrist Falconer, Poems and Other Prevarications (Richard K. Morgan)
Once, I was a proud Canadian. Maybe someday I can be once again. But not now.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/04/01/cv-election-harper-economy-1029.html
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is once again vowing to end electoral per-vote subsidies. The last time he floated this idea, Canada came close to a constitutional crisis and its first Coalition Government. But Harper prorogued Parliament and the Opposition blinked.
But he has never changed his intentions and he has never changed his desires. Stephen Harper is a criminal. His government (do recall that it was the, heh, 'Harper Government') is under investigation for electoral fraud, is guilty of being in contempt of Parliament, is plagued by scandal after scandal. All those scandals seem to trace back right to the Prime Minister's Office. How could they do anything else, when Harper is such a control freak.
So this is what my nation has to look forward to, if Harper gets a majority mandate?
Worse than that, though, is the simple fact that in spite of all the scandal and malfeasance and corruption and contempt, Stephen Harper is not suffering in the polls. For all his crimes, his supporters are not deserting him.
"The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice." -Quellcrist Falconer, Poems and Other Prevarications (Richard K. Morgan)
Once, I was a proud Canadian. Maybe someday I can be once again. But not now.
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